Definition of "ferment"

ferment

/fəˈmɛnt/

verb
third-person singular simple present ferments, present participle fermenting, simple past and past participle fermented
1. To react, using fermentation; especially to produce alcohol by aging or by allowing yeast to act on sugars; to brew.
  Quotations
  The cleanup job would turn out to be possibly second only to body-recovery duty in terms of being a job that nobody wanted to get assigned to. Imagine, for a moment, a thick soup of oil, paper, ink, clothing, raw meat and other fresh provisions, and worse, that had all been left to collect together in semi-warm water, all enclosed in a large metal container that had then been subjected to heating by first fire and then repeated warm Hawaiian days, and then left to ferment for over a month, and then with most of the water drained away and all the remaining solid and semi-liquid mass collecting together in pools and heaps across multiple decks, still in a relatively-enclosed environment.
  2020 November 18, Drachinifel, 6:21 from the start, in The Salvage of Pearl Harbor Pt 2 - Up She Rises!‎, archived from the original on 22 October 2022
2. To stir up, agitate, cause unrest or excitement in.
  Quotations
  Ye vigorous swains! while youth ferments your blood.
  1713, Alexander Pope, “Windsor-Forest. […]”, in The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope, volume I, London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintot, […], published 1717
  Pleas'd have I wander'd thro' your rough domain; / Trod the pure virgin-ſnows, myſelf as pure; / Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burſt; / Or ſeen the deep fermenting tempeſt brew'd, / In the grim evening ſky.
  1726, James Thomson, “Winter”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, page 165, lines 10–14
noun
plural ferments
1. Something, such as a yeast or barm, that causes fermentation.
2. A state of agitation or of turbulent change.
  Quotations
  Subdue and cool the ferment of desire.
  a. 1729, John Rogers, The Difficulties of Obtaining Salvation
  The nation is in a ferment.
  14 November, 1770, Junius, letter to the Right Honourable Lord Mansfield
  Clad in a Persian-Renaissance gown and a widow's tiara of white batiste, Mrs Thoroughfare, in all the ferment of a Marriage-Christening, left her chamber on vapoury autumn day and descending a few stairs, and climbing a few others, knocked a trifle brusquely at her son's wife's door.
  1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth, hardback edition, page 104
3. A gentle internal motion of the constituent parts of a fluid; fermentation.
  Quotations
  A Rage of Pleaſure madden'd every Breaſt, / Down to the loweſt Lees the Ferment ran: [...]
  1748, James Thomson, “Canto II”, in The Castle of Indolence: […], London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, […], stanza XXX, page 56
4. A catalyst.

Definition of "ferment"

ferment

verb

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noun

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